Report: Bomb suspects' carjack victim spared because he wasn't American

The two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon’s finish line told the man they carjacked on Thursday night that they only decided not to kill him because he “wasn’t an American,” according to a report Monday.

NBC’s Pete Williams said the man, who asked not to be identified, told police that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev said they spared his life because he was not an American.

Text Size

-

+

reset

“He also told the police investigators after this episode, when they finally got to him — he is the one who called 911 — that they let him out of the car and didn’t kill him because he wasn’t an American,” Williams said.

Williams said NBC had exchanged e-mails with the victim, who described the suspects as “brutal but cautious.” He said the victims didn’t want to appear on camera.

Meanwhile, a senior United States official told The New York Times that the Tsarnaev brothers may have been headed to New York City in the Mercedes-Benz SUV they hijacked Thursday, although it’s not clear if they planned on further attacks there.

Williams said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the carjacking victim had heard the suspects - who were speaking in a foreign language - use the word “Manhattan.”

“He told the police that he couldn’t understand what they were saying but that he thought it was, quote, blah, blah, blah, blah, Manhattan blah, blah, blah,” Williams said, adding: “The police who have heard this story understand what the [victim] was saying, but doubt that he could really understand what they were saying.”

Later in the day, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly downplayed the Manhattan reference. When asked on CNN’s “The Situation Room” whether he had heard from authorities that the suspects were aiming to bring a pressure cooker bomb or other such devices into Manhattan, he responded, “Absolutely not. Not the case.”